ACC All Access: Virginia Tech's Demitri Knowles learning the game after getting a taste of football in The Bahamas

Norm Wood

On Sunday, in a church in Freeport on the island of Grand Bahama, they sang happy birthday in absentia to Demitri Knowles – aka Demitri “Touchdown” Knowles in those parts.

Knowles, who actually turned 20 on Tuesday, is still learning the game as a redshirt freshman wide receiver at Virginia Tech, but he’s already a football hero back on his native island. Of course, football is still something of a foreign concept in The Bahamas.

After spending just two seasons at Liberty Christian Academy in Lynchburg playing a sport he really knew nothing about before he was 14 years old, Knowles is making strides in the game.

In Tech’s 48-34 loss last Saturday at North Carolina, he led Tech (3-3 overall, 1-1 ACC) with career highs in catches with six and receiving yards with 83. He also returned a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown.

It might not have been on the same level as his first touchdown – a 42-yard catch midway through the fourth quarter of Virginia Tech’s 20-17 overtime win against Georgia Tech in the season-opener – but it was close.

“I don’t think I could ever compare the two,” said Knowles, who has nine catches for 148 yards and a touchdown as a second team receiver. “I mean, the Georgia Tech game was like – I’ve never experienced anything like it, but also in the North Carolina game I haven’t experienced anything like that either. It was all great.”

He’s a bright spot among a bunch of young players on the offensive side that are still trying to make a lasting impression in their first seasons on the field.

Redshirt freshman tight end Ryan Malleck has nine catches for 65 yards, but he has also had several drops and he’s still picking up the blocking aspects of the game. Redshirt freshman receiver Kevin Asante has just one catch for one yard.

Redshirt freshman Michael Holmes and true freshman J.C. Coleman have both yet to have a game with 100-plus yards rushing, pushing Tech’s consecutive streak of games without a 100-yard rusher to eight dating back to last season. The longest streak Tech has had without a 100-yard rusher in coach Frank Beamer’s 26 seasons has been 10 games (twice).

Knowles earned his college scholarship not for his great hands or for any expert ability to run routes. Truth be told, he was lacking in both areas coming out of high school.

He ran track and swam competitively growing up in The Bahamas, but football caught his attention when he was 14 years old. Yet, there was no outlet for him to play the game – a game he’s still picking up to this day.

“Basically, those two things were like second nature to me,” said Knowles of track and swimming. “Football is like, I had to learn something new and it’s sometimes frustrating. I don’t know certain things…a lot of guys have played all their life, but I haven’t, so it’s a little frustrating sometimes.”

His only exposure to the game before his high school years – other than watching Miami Dolphins and Miami Hurricanes games on television – was playing it in his backyard.

It didn’t take long for football to become an obsession for Knowles. He joined a club football league in The Bahamas, and told his parent he wanted to play on a more competitive level.

“When I told my mom, she was like, ‘You want to play football? There’s no football in the Bahamas’” said Knowles, whose parents still live in The Bahamas and who told him about the experience in church this past Sunday. “That’s when I realized I had to move.”

His father looked for a good Christian school in the United States where Knowles could get an education and play football. It worked out that Knowles already had a living arrangement connection established in Lynchburg.

Playing football in the U.S. was a different animal altogether. As Knowles mentioned, he was playing against kids that had played the sport much of their lives.

“I always faster than most of the guys, but in some cases I would not be running as fast because I would probably not know what I was doing,” said Knowles, who added he visits home in The Bahamas every summer and during Christmas. “All that came into it, but after that I started to get more comfortable and to perform the way I wanted to.”

In addition to winning the Virginia Independent Schools 100 meter dash state championship as a senior, and being ranked the No. 1 sprinter in the Mid-Atlantic by MileStat, he started to develop as a receiver, too. He had 25 catches for 338 yards and six touchdowns in his senior season.

He had offers from Tech, Virginia and Connecticut, and opted to become a Hokie.

“A lot of teams said I would probably be redshirted, but it was up to me and my learning process,” said Knowles, who added he’d like to eventually run track at Tech if his football and track schedules didn’t conflict. “I didn’t have a problem redshirting because I knew I had a lot to learn. I figured once I learned things would turn out pretty well.”

With a year of studying the game on the college level under his belt, Knowles already has the making of an impact player, and a go-to man for quarterback Logan Thomas.

“He’s always kind of had the football mentality of being able to run the right routes or catch the football,” Thomas said. “That’s never been the problem. It’s just learning what he’s supposed to do that’s been the problem for him.

“He’s learning. He’s learning the playbook and he’s learning how to play fast…It’s nice to have him out there. He’s always had speed, but he also puts a lot of pressure on those (cornerbacks) where they’ve got to keep backing up, and then he can break it off and be wide open on an under route as well.”